


Time Out

by darthjuno



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthjuno/pseuds/darthjuno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was so stupid to think that time and distance would make any of it okay. So naïve to even entertain the possibility of a normal life when this house stood derelict and vandalised and his family lay buried or burned and there was no one to blame but him, the man who sold them all out for a girl’s smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Out

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a combination of prompts:  
>  _this picture..._
> 
> [](http://fav.me/d4fecpe) _... and the song["Autumnsong"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSNlZO6IlNw) by Tom Milsom._  
>  I do recommend listening to it while you read.

Being in this house physically hurt him.

He hadn’t dared to even look at it, much less step foot in it, since the fire. That was a long time ago now, and if Derek thought he could smell ashes and burning flesh, it was all in his mind.

The light filtered in through the trees overhead, with no roof to shelter the house from the elements. The floor was in a state of disrepair, all burned wood and broken floorboards, chasms that gaped open and inviting into the dreadful darkness below, the basement where most of his family burned to death.

Derek looked up. On one of the last walls left standing, some punk-ass kid had spray-painted the words “Time Out” just above the door. Underneath the momentary swell of rage and indignation at the sacrilegious paint on his childhood home’s walls, Derek felt shame.

_I’ve had enough of a time-out._

Whatever was left of his family needed him. There was no time left to spare.

Under the words stood a chair, the only piece of furniture miraculously left unscathed by the fire. His sister used to love that thing. Derek wondered if she’d come in here before she died, if she’d seen the words and the chair and the torn-up floor, if she’d cried for everyone they’d lost and for the time they wasted running away from this place—the time-out that only dulled the pain by taking them away from where their hearts were.

He reached out and placed a trembling hand on the back of the chair, as if the guilt and the regret he felt could somehow reach everyone he loved.

He was so stupid to think that time and distance would make any of it okay. So naïve to even entertain the possibility of a normal life when this house stood derelict and vandalised and his family lay buried or burned and there was no one to blame but _him_ , the man who sold them all out for a girl’s smile.

He’d had enough time. Time had killed his sister, who found death where she’d been looking for answers. Time was killing his uncle, who lay unresponsive in a hospital bed for years, burned so horribly that even his wolf healing proved useless. Time was gonna kill Derek in the end, if he didn’t do something to make right all his wrongs.

He looked at the words again. “Time.” “Out.” Time to get out.

He stepped outside and walked away, not looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Amy Rose](http://haynnes.tumblr.com) for the beta read <3


End file.
